United States or Comoros ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
He is altogether unworthy, and though in this tale there is far less of spiritual meaning than in Sintram, we cannot but see that Fouque's thought was that the grosser human nature is unable to appreciate what is absolutely pure and unearthly. by Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
There is a beautiful moral in one of Fouque's miniature romances, Die Kohlerfamilie.
I mean Fouqué's splendid tale, the 'Galgenmännlein. The terribly vivacious little creature in the phial who comes out of it at night, and lays himself down on the breast of that master of his, who has such awful dreams the fearsome man in the mountain glen, with his great coal-black steed which crawls up the perpendicular cliffs like a fly on a wall in short, all the uncanny and supernatural elements which are present in the story in such plentiful measure together rivet and strain the attention to an extent absolutely frightening; it affects one like some powerful drink, which immensely excites the senses and at the same time sheds a beneficent warmth through the heart.
Mother Carey had been disappointed in the sale of a somewhat ambitious set of groups from Fouque's "Seasons," which were declared abstruse and uninteresting to the public. She had accepted an order for some very humble work, not much better than chimney ornaments, for which she rose early, and toiled while Babie was out driving with her friends.
It had figured as Medusa as Circe; the wonderful wicked woman of the Middle Ages had come to her in visions with just such subtle eyes, such languorous beauty, such fair white skin and yellow hair; the witch-woman of her weirdest dream had had the look of Florence Lepel; just as Hubert's far different features, with the dark melancholy expression of suffering stamped upon them, had stood for her as those of Fouqué's ideal knights, or of Sintram riding through the dark valley, of Lancelot sinning and repenting, of saint, hero, martyr, paladin, in turn, until she grew old enough to banish such foolish dreams.
Her name was Selina, which gives the tale a modern aspect, and makes us wonder if the old tradition can have been modified by some report of Undine's story. There was an idea set forth by the Rosicrucians of spirits abiding in the elements, and as Undine represented the water influences, Fouque's wife, the Baroness Caroline, wrote a fairly pretty story on the sylphs of fire.
They sat down under the shade of a tall lady-birch, the deep, sunlit lake shining through the trees. Then Gaspar, taking a little book in his hands, asked: "Have you read 'Undine, Miss Earle Fouque's 'Undine?" "No," she replied; "I am half ashamed to say so." "It is the sweetest, saddest story ever written," he continued. "This is just the morning for it. May I read it to you?"
It is within the bounds of possibility that the similarities of folk-lore may have brought to Fouque's knowledge the outline of the story which Scott tells us was the germ of "Guy Mannering"; where a boy, whose horoscope had been drawn by an astrologer, as likely to encounter peculiar trials at certain intervals, actually had, in his twenty-first year, a sort of visible encounter with the Tempter, and came off conqueror by his strong faith in the Bible.
Polyidos takes the same blade of grass, and with it resuscitates Glaukos. The same incident occurs in the Hindu story of Panch Phul Ranee, and in Fouque's "Sir Elidoc," which is founded on a Breton legend. We need not wonder, then, at the extraordinary therapeutic properties which are in all Aryan folk-lore ascribed to the various lightning-plants.
So she began in a dreamy voice, and you who have read De la Motte Fouque's dry version of this exquisite legend would hardly have recognised the poetry and pathos and tender sentiment she wove round those two, and the varied moods of Undine, and the passion of her knight.
Word Of The Day